Samsung has announced that it will release updates to the Tizen operating system for its smart TVs for seven years from the date the devices hit the market. At this stage, this innovation applies to some models released in 2023, as well as TVs that were introduced in March 2024.
Image source: Samsung
The announcement of the change in Samsung’s TV software update policy comes shortly after the South Korean company said the Galaxy S24 series smartphones will also have software updates for seven years, the report said. “With free Tizen upgrades for seven years, applicable to AI-powered TVs, we will widen the gap in market share with Chinese companies,” a source quoted a Samsung spokesperson as saying.
Samsung continues to be the world’s largest smart TV maker, but rival companies from China are gradually closing the gap. Samsung’s global TV market share (based on units shipped) fell from 20.3% in the first quarter of 2023 to 18.8% in the first quarter of 2024, according to Omdia. At the same time, the market share of Chinese TCL over the same period increased from 9.8% to 11.6%. The share of South Korean LG remained virtually unchanged and amounted to 11.8%.
Competition in the smart TV market has become so fierce that the South Korean government has pushed Samsung to partner with LG. The joint work of the companies led to the fact that Samsung began selling TVs equipped with OLED panels from LG Display. As for Samsung’s new statement regarding software updates on TVs for seven years, a specific list of device models that will be affected by this innovation was not announced.